As I've made clear, I am not a spokesperson for UK Uncut although of course I have sympathy with their cause. Let's be clear what they're doing. They're asking people to pay the right amount of tax in the right place at the right time. It's hardly an act of political extremism is it?

And yet the police responded to this demand that people pay their tax - the tax that does of course pay for the police - with acts of violence.

Video footage has emerged that appears to show the moment a policeofficer used CS spray on protesters at Sunday's UK Uncutprotest.

Hundreds of people staged sit-ins at high-street stores around the country as part of a day of action designed to highlight companies it says are avoiding millions of pounds in tax.

In London, protesters successfully forced a branch of Boots (one of the companies campaigners accuse of tax avoidance) in Oxford Street to close when police tried to arrest a woman for pushing a leaflet through the store's doors.

Footage obtained by the Guardian shows protesters chanting as officers attempt to make the arrest. In the background, a male police officer is seen using a spray from close range.

Three people were taken to hospital to be treated for injuries caused by the use of the spray, which Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) guidelines say is "one of a number of tactical options available to an officer who is faced with violence or the threat of violence".

"Its use must be lawful in all the circumstances," the guidelines say. "The decision to use the spray is an individual one for which the officer will be accountable."

Orde criticised the lack of willingness of new protest groups that have sprung up around the internet, such as UK Uncut, to engage with police before protests. He said if they continued to refuse to co-operate, then police tactics would have to become more extreme.

"It is not good enough to throw our hands up in the air and say 'Oh, we can't negotiate because there is no one to negotiate with,'" he told Prospect magazine in an interview published on Thursday. "There are lots of people we can talk to, but they need to stand up and lead their people, too. If they don't, we must be clear that the people who wish to demonstrate won't engage, communicate or share what they intend to do with us, and so our policing tactics will have to be different ... slightly more extreme."

The Acpo guidelines state that CS spray should not be used at a distance of less than one metre from the target, "unless the nature of the risk to the officer is such that this cannot be avoided".

"In such cases, officers must be prepared to justify not only their use of the spray but also their decision to use it at a distance which may cause damage to eyes due to the discharge pressure of the liquid."

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said it was reviewing the circumstances of the incident.

When civil society is demanding that people obey the law and the police use violence to suppress that demand you know there is a profound malaise in the society in question. A malaise akin to corruption.

It seems to me that's the state we've reached in the UK.

The right to protest, peacefully, is a fundamental human right.

It is Sir Hugh Orde who is abusing human rights.

I sincerely hope successful prosecutions are brought against the police for this action. Those responsible deserve to be brought to account for the abuse they have perpetrated. And that's not just the officer who used the spray - but everyone up to Sir Hugh Orde who gave him permission to do so.

But you are right, nonetheless. Still, I have no faith that anything will come of the enquiry into police behaviour on this – or any other – occasion. Not least because the Independent Police Complaints Commission is yet another regulatory body that appears to suffer from regulatory capture, and ACPO – as has been repeatedly established – is a completely unregulated body. Furthermore, the ‘malaise’ as you call it penetrates far deeper into our state apparatus, as this little piece from a recent edition of Private Eye illustrates:

’32 Months for which Edward Woollard was jailed for throwing a fire extinguisher which could have killed (but didn’t) a police officer at a protest.
0 Charges brought against a police officer for striking and pushing Ian Tomlinson which could have killed him at a protest (and one pathologist says probably did).’

You are absolutely correct in stating that there is a deep malaise in our society and that the police as agents of the state now appear to be at the front line in the attack against ordinary citizens. It is somewhat ironic that at the same time our government is urging the Egyptian authorities not to resort to violence and allow peaceful protest. Some of us rememeber police tactics against the miners but they were working class and so the majority of citizens were not concerned about these abusues. Now the protesters are middle class, and I hope that people wake up and realise that before long we will be living the nightmare of a fully fledged police state in which it will be dangerous to mount an effective opposition to the economic shock therapy.
Clegg remarked that there could be social unrest so what we see are examples of the government plans to deal with this.

And candidly, I think a modest number of people going into a store does qualify as that – if done peaceably and without threat to any person and with the clear intention of leaving again when the point is made

These people deserved to be sprayed with CS gas, I hope it hurt them and taught them a lesson.

I have limited sympathy for these protesters. But press reports indicate that they were not violent and were dispersed before they had the opportunity to trespass on private property. If this is the case, the use of pepper gas (typically reserved for violent offenders) seems abusive.

@Ivan Horrocks
“0 Charges brought against a police officer for striking and pushing Ian Tomlinson which could have killed him at a protest (and one pathologist says probably did).”
As far as I’m aware, the second pathologist said that Ian Tomlinson’s death *might* have been caused by the push, but hadn’t seen the intra-abdominal fluid and so couldn’t be sure. The only pathologist that saw the fluid reported that there wasn’t enough blood in it to indicate a hemorrhage. None of this explains why the officer wasn’t charged with assault (that was CPS incompetence), but he can’t be done for manslaughter.

But the spirt of the law has been transgressed, in my opinion
And let’s note – banks at least have now signed up to the spirit of the law

I respect your opinion, Richard. But if all citizens start to engage in protests (even non-violent) against others’ behavior whenever they feel that such behavior is morally objectionable, we will rapidly descend into chaos. The place to settle this type or arguments is the legislature and the courts, NOT the street.

As for the banks, please note that the document they have signed up to is neither statutory nor legally binding (that was the very strict condition under which the US/international banks would agree to it). It is not enforceable.

A good call letting @Gary Settle’s remarks through. I dare say he took the same view with the protestors in Tiananmen Square (because they were breaking the law)and is currently lamenting the fact that the army have not begun to shoot protestors in Egypt (because they too are breaking the law)!

Candidly Richard, you don’t understand what the rule is. It is about legal certainty, allowing people to understand what their rights and obligations are as clearly as possible. Boots has worked within the rules so far as I am aware. I suggest you read up on the rule of law as a legal and moral concept. Please see: Raz, ‘The Authority of Law’, Ch 11 for more on this. It might help you to think through what the implications of a general anti avoidance provision would actually be.

‘The place to settle this type or arguments is the legislature and the courts, NOT the street.’

Than may well be the ideal but think about it. Isn’t it precisely because issues such as these are so seldom allowed to be resolved through those mechanisms (for reasons to lengthy to get into here, but see reference to hegemony, regulatory capture, etc, etc) that an increasing number of ordinary citizens are resorting to the only means we have left to show our disatisfaction and frustration at what’s going on.

You maybe don’t see this because I assume from reading your posts that you generally take the view that the political and economic system in which we live is generally ok. Personally – like Richard and many others who read this blog (I suspect) – I increasingly don’t. Greed, corruption, cronyism, crass individualism (dressed up as ‘freedom’), etc, are now rampant. Or, as the UN put it a few years ago:

‘At the start of the twenty-first century we live in a divided world. The size of the divide poses a fundamental challenge to the global human community. Part of that challenge is ethical and moral. As Nelson Mandela put it in 2005: “Massive poverty and obsene inequality are such terrible scrourges of our times – times in which the world boasts breathtaking advances in science, technology, industry and wealth accumulation – that they have to rank alongside slavery and apartheid as social ills.”‘ (UN, 2005, p.4)

“change has always happened through protest – usually passive protest”.

Instigating “change” is the single raison d’?™tre of the PSG.
Making it safer for pensioners to deposit/invest their life savings ‚Ä¶

As our average age is well into the seventies we have little option other than passive protest. Not that we advocate violent behaviour in any form, but the peaceful occupation of offices in certain quarters would appear to be an excellent idea – assuming they have wheelchair access.

As for; “the conceptual relationship between law and morality”‚Ä¶ this philosophy is apparently little understood by the governments on the islands of shame …

According to the Guardian today one of the protesters was arrested and other protesters became violent and attacked police to try to prevent the arrest taking place. A single officer then used CS spray on the protesters who were attacking them.

If that is right then CS spray may well be an overreaction, but yet again it appears that the protesters are not completely absolved from blame here.

Use of CS spray in these circumstances does sound like an overreaction to say the least. What worries me most about these incidents is that the oversight of the police is limited, and their accountability questionable. I’d like to see a taskforce of civilians set up to monitor policing at events like this. They would be independent of political parties and the police force itself and would be able to check that police were adhering to basic guidelines on the use of CS spray and other forms of force.

It’s possible that one officer just overreacted – on the other hand it’s possible that sections of the police have a political agenda to crush any protest that is vaguely left-wing. Without further information it’s impossible to say.

“Before Sunday’s protest, Sir Hugh Orde, president of Acpo, had warned that police could adopt more extreme tactics to counter the growing wave of protests”.
If that’s what the police are saying, what does that tell you? So much for British democracy and the right of peaceful protest. The fact is, many of the rights we now take for granted weren’t won by reasoned arguments or debate, since those in power treated such methods with contempt or indifference.

The sad fact is that people suffered and sometimes, died, in the face of vicious treatment by the British state; look at the treatment meted out to the Suffragettes campaigning for the right of ‘mere’ women to have the vote. And quite a few of them were from relatively wealthy, privileged backgrounds.

@Richard Murphy
Richard, instead of referring to Raz, Tyisha could have referred to Dworkin who stands in stark contrast to Raz and would not be counted as a positivist.

Importantly Dworkin would still recognise that there is an answer to the question, “does the tax code crystallise a tax liablity if this particular arrangement obtains?” That is, there is a right answer to the question and if the particular arrangement does not obtain then that part of the tax code does not apply. This is because the legal certainty to which Tyisha refers is important for Dworkin as well as Raz, even though they are very different in legal philosophy. Dworkin certaintly recognises the moral dimension of law.

Perhaps you would dismiss Dworkin as well as Raz.

Any regime that is morally suspect will use many devices to bolster the regime, even if they do not understand or misrepresent what is used. If the pro-apartheid regime in South Africa would have believed that Raz’s understanding of the nature of law provided a foundation for the continued existence of immoral laws in SA, the regime did not understand what Raz was saying. If a immoral regime misunderstands a thinker that by itself is not a reason for you or anybody to reject the position advocated by the thinker. There may be reasons to reject the postion Raz advocates, but not the ones you gave.

You have been a little harsh on Raz given how hard he has worked to present a position, argue for it and engage with the criticism of those that disagree with him.

When Tyisha says that legal certainty is about “allowing people to understand what their rights and obligations are as clearly as possible” she is saying something which is considered very important by many, however they stand politically.

“There are lots of people we can talk to, but they need to stand up and lead their people, too. If they don’t, we must be clear that the people who wish to demonstrate won’t engage, communicate or share what they intend to do with us, and so our policing tactics will have to be different ‚Ä¶ slightly more extreme.”

@sickoftaxdodgers
I entirely agree with these comments. If I had been present and witnesseed a colleague being arrested for posting a leaflet through a letter box then I too would have been very cross and pulled the persom away from the officer (and I am 61 ) and this may have been construed as ‘violence’.
Frankly our patience is being tested by the political and economic elites and in this respect the UK is little different from many other countries. Our parliamentary democracy is a sham, political manifestos mean nothing – the Tory promise of no top down reorganisation of the NHS was a complete lie. According to the press the LibDems are keener on the neoliberal agenda than the Tories but they kept that quiet during the election campain. Now we face the prospect of waiting almost 5 years before we can vote again and by then the Coalition hopes to buy off the electorate with tax cuts. Frankly I am now at the stage where I view any comment from a leading politician as a complete fabrication to disguise a hidden agenda. As a former political activist in the 80s and 90s I never thought that I would have so little faith in the British political system. As Egypt shows , the powerful are always reluctant to relinquish their power and seek to enforce it by whatever means they can including the use of brutal force.

My point is a very simple one – since 1869 if I remember rightly – it may 1868) a legal interpretation has been used for tax law in the UK i.e. tax s charged only on the basis that there is a specific charging provision even if the result is unjust

I propose an equitable interpretation be used – that a just interpretation be applied

What is the problem with that? We use equity it in so many other areas – why not tax?

As you know matters have moved on over the last 140 years or so. An expression of what some judges do when faced with tax cases is captured by Ribeiro when he said:

“The ultimate question is whether the relevant statutory provisions, construed purposively, were intended to apply to the transaction, viewed realistically.”

He said this in the context of ruling against a stamp duty avoidance arrangement, so he was against the “bad guys”.

Three other matters to consider. Firstly charging provisions give rise to far fewer instances of tax avoidance arrangements which are disputed by HMRC than do claims for tax reliefs in circumstances, to borrow a phrase from USA tax jurisprudence, there is no economic substance to the claim. As you probably know this concept was created by USA judges and not by Congress so fits awkwardly with the UK constitutional set up.

Secondly in terms of charging provisions, in the last 140 years or so Parliament, representing the people of the UK, under Labour, Liberal and Tory governments (including coalitions) have not disturbed the idea the charging provisions should be certain … the reason possibly being that Parliament buys into the importance of the idea of the rule of law in the UK. Which is a good thing.

Finally, of course Parliament could give power to the judiciary to extend the words of Parliament and bring something into charge to tax that under the tax code, as interpreted and applied by somebody like Ribeiro, would not otherwise be included. However consideration would have to be given to the impact of the Bill of Rights on such action, the European Convention on Human Rights and our own dear Human Rights Act. Under these acts, as you know, there is a right for the government to tax, provided that the citizen is protected by there existing a measure of certainty and clarity in the tax code that imposes a charge to tax.

What will be of interest is that if some form of general anti avoidance legislation is introduced and it follows the Australian model, then before the GAAR/GanTIP can be applied the arrangement adopted by the taxpayer must fall outside the charging provision (ie no tax is chargeable) and the judges then impose a tax that in effect they make up or the taxpayer is actually entitled under the existing tax code to the tax relief and the judges take it away. As a result, some taxing rights are moved from Parliament to the judiciary. Fine if Parliament wants to do that and it does not detract from the Bill of Rights and HRA etc.

@Richard Murphy
Just to note, the Halifax decision was not based on the English law principle of equity, it was based on the civil principle of abuse of rights, which is very different and is therefore also very different from what you were suggesting.

I do not understand your reference to Vodafone, unless you are referring to the recent settlement and pointing out that the European judges had pretty well made clear that the UK CFC law was not in accordance with EU requirements which in practice means that Vodafone could structure itself how it will in Europe. In which case HMRC were lucky to receive any amount in settlement from Vodafone. Is that what you mean?

I am not sure that Europe (as in the EU) provided the UK human rights legislation. Was the European Convention not a bunch of countries (that happened to be in Europe) believing the protecting the human rights of individuals and note also, of companies, is a good thing?